12198: Haiti and the Struggle for Reparations (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: karioka9@cs.com

HAITI AND THE STRUGGLE FOR REPARATIONS

[Remarks delivered at a round table forum on reparations organized by the December 12th Movement and the Patrice Lumumba Coalition, at the Harriet Tubman-Fannie Lou Hamer Human Rights Center in Brooklyn.]

Two years from now, Haiti will commemorate the bicentennial of its independence.  Yes, 200 years as a free nation!  When Haiti proclaimed its independence on January 1, 1804, blacks were enslaved on every other piece of land in this so-called New World.  Ten years ago in 1991, Haitians commemorated another bicentennial: the 200th anniversary of what is known as the Bois Caiman ceremony.  One week prior to the actual Bois Caiman ceremony, 200 delegates from various plantations in northern Haiti held a Congress and decided to strike against the plantation system.  At the Bois Caiman ceremony, which was part religion and part political agitation, the participants, men and women, swore a blood oath to burn down the plantations and to kill all the whites.  The general uprising launched that very night would eventually lead to Haiti's independence.  If you look up "Bois Caiman" or "Haiti 2004" on the internet, you'll run smack into Christian missionaries who hold that the Bois Caiman ceremony was a pact with Satan, and that the poverty and political turmoil in Haiti today are part of God's vengeance.  A convenient belief for some . . .

When the slaves set fire to the cane fields in Aug. and Sep. 1791, they effectively burned down the world's richest colony.  Those -- including many Haitians -- who like to simplify things, are prone to say that this destruction by fire set the stage for a future of economic backwardness.  They ignore or conveniently forget that Toussaint Louverture, in less than 10 years, had restored the colony to its former splendor.  By 1801, Haiti was in fact so prosperous and Toussaint Louverture so powerful, that Napoleon felt compelled to dispatch 60,000 of Europe's best and most experienced soldiers to put that black man back in his place, and to reenslave the black masses who had made him so strong.  We say in Creole "byen konte, mal kalkile," meaning that Napoleon knew how to count and to line up his armies, but that he didn't know how to add up the lessons of history.  So the plantations burned once again, and Toussaint who had made some errors, among them trusting too much in French military honor, was captured by treason.  But the Haitian masses fought on, and won an impossible war of fire and blood.  They reduced Napoleon's powerful expedition to a pitiful rabble who flew into British captivity at the end of November 1803, in order to escape the wrath of the people in arms.  And yet is it accurate to say that the Haitian masses destroyed the wealth of the colony in order to gain their independence?  What made it impossible for independent Haiti to restore what Toussaint Louverture rebuilt in less than 10 years?

Plantation economy is based on three factors: markets, labor and capital.  After Haiti gained its independence in 1804, the white world imposed an international embargo that was meant to cripple the new nation.  For a few short years, Haiti was able to exploit the rivalries between France, England and the United States, in order to trade its products on the international market.  But after the Europeans made their peace in 1815, the embargo was near universal.  The white world would not purchase any sugar or product manufactured in Haiti.  They would only purchase raw material, mostly coffee and campeche (logwood).  Haiti was effectively isolated, and the black masses, hungry for land, left the big plantations for marginal lands on the steep hillsides that they could claim as their own.  Those who stayed on the plantations became sharecroppers.  But whether as sharecroppers or as small independent farmers, Haiti's original peasants were by choice, and also out of necessity, subsistence farmers.  They grew what they needed to feed their family, and then a few cash crops for the market.  The third component of a plantation economy is capital, and here I'm finally getting to the point about reparations.

France never accepted the loss of its former colony.  In 1825, The French king decreed that the Haitian government was obliged to pay an indemnity of 150 million francs, to make up for the losses suffered when the French settlers were forced to abandon their property on the island.  The property in question included their former slaves …  In return, his Gracious Majesty granted its independence to Haiti!  Haiti's first rulers -- Dessalines, Christophe and Petion, would have scorned this outrageous decree.  In fact Christophe had previously executed a couple of emissaries bearing a similar message from France.   But Haiti's ruler in 1825 was not a warrior.  He was a bureaucrat who came to power through intrigue.  And the French king, to get his point across, sent a fleet and the arrogant Baron Mackau to deliver it. Haiti's president, Jean-Pierre Boyer, disgraced himself by accepting the French ultimatum.  A first installment of 30 millions Francs had to be paid, and the Haitian state had to borrow the money from France, at exorbitant rates. This is known in Haiti as "the double debt," which further crippled the new country's economy.  It took Haiti more than six decades to pay this extravagant debt, which was eventually reduced from 150 to 90 million francs. Haitian economists have estimated that adding the principal to the interest accumulated over the years would yield several billion dollars in today's currency.  Haiti could not accumulate the initial social capital needed to jumpstart its economy because that money had to be paid to France for a debt that was both immoral and wrong. Nor was France the only culprit in bleeding the country dry. Throughout the 19th century, the imperialist powers (France, Germany, England, the United States and Spain) imposed all kinds of bogus claims against Haiti, to pay for alleged losses suffered by their nationals during Haiti's too frequent coups d'etat and so-called revolutions.

It is then no surprise that after 200 years of this kind of punishment and international plunder, Haiti is now officially the poorest country in the hemisphere.  It must also be said that mismanagement and a penchant for civil warfare have contributed their share to the present conditions.  The Neville Brothers have a song where they ask the world to "give Haiti a chance."  The fact is that the European and North American imperialists never gave a chance to Haiti. Even as we speak, they continue to squeeze the country, because it must be shown that independence was the wrong choice in 1804.  And if Haiti could not make it after 200 years, then it must be true, by some twisted analogy,  that Africa still needs the white man to show them the way.

The French government recently recognized slavery as a crime against humanity.  They even issued an apology to their former victims.  But for Haiti, an apology from France, even one spoken from the heart, doesn't add to very much.  I imagine the same is true for the African continent.  The Haiti of today is so impoverished that the state cannot put together a budget without handouts from the United States and the so-called international community.  And any handout from the US, the IMF or the European Union, means that Haiti must do their bidding, no questions asked.  In the age of globalization, this means that Haiti must surrender its sovereignty each step of the way.  It means that Haiti must purchase all the junk they dump on its market, but that Haiti will only have mangoes and cheap labor to sell in return.  Right now, the central hospital in downtown Port-au-Prince is without syringes because the government cannot pay for them.  Literacy is at 15% because the state cannot meet the expenditures to educate its people.  The chancellor of the State University complained recently that the central government is only spending $10 per student per year!  Haiti is spending less than $150,000 this year on agriculture, and this is a country with an acute problem with erosion, deforestation and access to water.  Now is the time for France to repay the independence debt that should have never been paid.  I said that this indemnity is worth billions in today's economy.  Maybe I'm wrong, but it is a figure that can be quantified.  Whatever the amount, Haiti needs that money to rebuild itself.  This is a moral imperative for the French nation, without which the recent apology is pure and naked hypocrisy.

The French and the British and the US imperialists have already said no on the question of reparations.  They fear they will not have enough money to pay for all the crimes they have committed in history.  Besides, they are not interested in any transfer of technology that would bring Africa and the rest of the world to their level.  They have already ascribed a place to us at the very bottom in the international division of labor among the world's nations.  We affirm for our part that reparation is a right and a moral obligation.  Restitution of all the wealth stolen from our countries and diverse communities is also a moral obligation.  But before the West concedes any obligation to us, we must work hard to mobilize our own people.  This is perhaps the hardest task we face, because the people are under the spell of the dominant ideology.  The Haitian community is eager to celebrate the bicentennial of its independence in 2004.  But there is no comparable eagerness to reclaim the wealth that was stolen from Haiti.  The Haitian government is desperate for funds, but does not dare confront France on that issue.  Our work begins at the grassroots; it is a work of education and political agitation.  But even as we educate and organize for reparations, we must work equally hard to transform the states and the societies we live in, so that when some reparation money comes along, it is not stolen by the Big Eaters, the Uncle Toms, the poverty pimps and all the corrupt elements that have preyed for so long on our people.  Bonne besogne, and thanks.

Daniel Simidor
28 May 2002